Tax corporate political campaign spending.

[Union Yes]

The USSC decision struck down spending limits.

The decision said nothing about taxing campaign spending.

Corporations will still have their little pet to play with, it'll just cost them MUCH more.

[ashling]

1. Good luck with that

Sounds like a prior restraint on speech from one type of entity which would fly in the face of the decision and go nowhere:shrug:

[Union Yes]

2. Super-wealthy megacorps would have to prove it to be a burden in court.

That would be a tough task for them.

[Statistical]

15. Tax doesn't need to be a burden to be unconstitutional.

Harper v. Virginia Board of Education.

Virginia attempted to show the poll tax was not a burden and that line of defense was shut down by the SCOTUS.

The intent of the OP is that taxation would reduce use of this "right" that in itself (without a burden) is unconstitutional.

[Celebration]

3. That probably won't fly

But I think a whole lot of disclosure laws need to be enacted. The entities behind the entities need to be on every ad, prominently, and on the screen for a sufficient amount of time to be soaked in-- not only the PAC, or whatever, but the funders of the PAC, also as to how much foreign ownership there is, etc. I don't think it would be a bad thing to have more campaign ads as long as they are required to identify the people and entities actually funding the ads, very plainly.

[KharmaTrain]

6. If It's Played Right It Could Be A Libability

Yes, the law states that any third party political ads clearly have to state who is sponsoring the ad. Now let's say it's Haliburton...do you think that would help a candidate? Or if we see "Scott Brown...sponsored by GE...he brings good things to life". The anti-corporate sentiment in this country is growing and in some cases toxic. In the past, corporations could hide behind PACs and special interest groups to filter the money...this forces them into the open. Democrats need to take advantage of this.

[Celebration]

10. I completely agree

They need some good ad people in on how to frame the law. I think there would be a whole lot of eye rolling by the populace once they aren plainly shown who paid for the ads.

It is ALL about transparency. And there is NOTHING the Supreme Court could do about a law like that.

And it doesn't require all the things that are proposed that we know won't happen, get rid of corporate personhood, etc.

[paulflorez]

4. Require the name of every single person who donated to be in ad and visible to the human eye

Require the name of every single person who donated to be in ad and visible to the human eye. That means large enough for you to see from your couch. Put shareholder names up there. Put names of every related company or every a.k.a for that company. Require as much information as possible to be placed in that ad and visible.

Basically, take the ability to enforce full disclosure to the max in order to add additional running time on the ads causing them to spend more money and to remind people that these are ads sponsored by many businesses, shareholders, etc. People also hate long commercials, so running a campaign ad may actually hurt their efforts if it annoys people. If the ad becomes too long and the network refuses, that's not the government's fault. Network's have a right to refuse to air ads, they can censor all they want.

[kelly1mm]

14. If the AFL-CIO pays for an ad do they have to list the name of

every union member on the ad as well?

[KharmaTrain]

5. Equal Protection...

Now that corporates are "individuals", it's not a long reach to say that if you impede their "free speech" you are not providing them equal protection under the law. Yet another demonstration as to how attrocious and regressive this court and ruling is.

[Faryn Balyncd]

7. Make them get approval from 60% of their shareholders, at a meeting where 40% can filibuster.

[Celebration]

11. something like that is a possibility

look for the Supreme Court to find a way to strike it down, though.

[dems_rightnow]

8. Already done

Political contributions to candidates and PACs have been non-deductible for many years, essentially taxing them.

[FormerDittoHead]

9. Here's what I'm worried about - sneaky commercials they then deduct as a business expense.

Having your 'standard' campaign ad would not be considered a deductible business expense of course.

But what about making a commercial with, if you will, a certain 'undertone' / message within the message.

Imagine, for example, people enjoying Budweiser at a Teaparty Rally! "Express yourself in everything you do! Drink Bud!"

Or a commercial for health insurance with the line, "lock in rates now or call this 1-800 / website to find out what you can do!" And the supplementary (little cost) media being TOTALLY political...

This is just off the top of my head...

[yowzayowzayowza]

12. Yep, tax it at a rate hight enuf to enable public funding of elections.

:hi:

[jberryhill]

13. Sure - every time a newspaper endorses a candidate - impose a tax penalty

How about Democratic Underground LLC? Should it be taxed on a per-posting basis?